


The Man Who Sold The World

by rhye



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-18
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-26 20:58:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhye/pseuds/rhye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Not for the first time, Sirius wondered which side Remus's escape had been from. "Remember me, when this goes south," answered Sirius. "Remember all of this. Remember that I would have sold the world for you."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Sold The World

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://hh-writersblock.livejournal.com/profile)[**hh_writersblock**](http://hh-writersblock.livejournal.com/) Prompt #57: Poetic Prompts.

The stairs up to their flat were dark, and as infrequently as they both inhabited it now that the war was in full swing, Sirius would never forget, not even in Azkaban, the day he'd seen the limp-and-lope that he knew to be Remus Lupin ascending through the gloom just as he moved towards the street. His own purposes were not nefarious in the sense that they were a traitor's, but rather they were a cheater's, so maybe he was the traitor in this after all. It was the reason the Dementors could not take it.

Sirius' very first instinct upon seeing his best friend and lover for three years making an unexpected November return from the battlefields of whatever secret haunts to which Dumbledore had sent him was, ashamedly, to pull up his collar and scarf and slide by. He knew that Remus knew his own gate as well as he knew Remus's. He also knew that Remus would not stop him, and that they could go on pretending that there was something _mutual_ and _exclusive_ about what they pretended to have. Perhaps Remus even expected them to pass as strangers.

Instead, the flickering fluorescent in the muggle building sparked just then across the sparse and dim freckles that ran just from one side of Remus' nose to the other, and Sirius stopped, looked right up, and smiled.

Remus gave him a smile in reply, shy, admitting that he _had_ in fact been about to let Sirius pass unhindered. It was edged not with the relief that Sirius had expected, but with something far more painful-- _knowledge_. Self-sacrifice even.

"Sirius," Remus cleared his throat and swayed a bit on the stairs, and Sirius could see that Remus might not have slept in a day or two. He saw now a new scar on Remus's right temple, light and easily hidden in this dimness. "Going out?" Remus asked.

"I was," Sirius answered gravely. "Now I'm not."

Remus nodded, and the movement seemed to say only 'fair enough', not triumph, no jealousy, and Sirius knew the man himself was as broken as his body.

Sirius hesitated then, realizing that there would be no sex at the top of these stairs. Remus was too battered, too exhausted. Someone was waiting for Sirius in the cold, and Remus had all but given him permission to go. As Remus walked quietly by him, Sirius turned, leaning a hand into the frail back of one of his oldest friends as they both moved up the stairs.

*****

"I thought you were dead."

Sirius turned and watched Remus' lips move even as he said it. It was strange, ironic. Sirius had been safe at home, not tasked with anything that the Order felt they could trust him with, while Remus had simply been _somewhere_ , somewhere he was not able to tell Sirius about, for whatever length of time he was not able to tell Sirius about. If anyone should have thought anyone else dead, Sirius would have thought that _Remus_ was dead. And yet here was Remus, saying the opposite.

"How could I be dead, I was here?" Sirius asked.

"Not your body. You. This person. Who was he?"

Sirius wasn't surprised by the question. "No one you know."

"Have there been others?"

Sirius exhaled and answered, "Loads." He was glad he was looking at the ceiling and not at Remus.

"I didn't know you could still love me," Remus answered without emotion. "I thought it was dead."

Sirius shook his head. "No. Many things might die in this war, Remus, but not that."

"How can you be sure?"

Sirius turned to Remus then, watching new bruises blossom and wondering how close Remus's escape was this time. Not for the first time, Sirius wondered which side Remus's escape had been from. "Remember me, when this goes south," answered Sirius. "Remember all of this. Remember that I would have sold the world for you."


End file.
